Level 1 Saitama
by Gasizol
Summary: King introduced Saitama to a recently released game called YGGDRASIL. He said it would cure his boredom, so he decided to give it a try. "Huh? What happened? Was that a bug or something?"


**Disclaimer: I do not own Overlord and One Punch Man or anything that might get my ass sued. This is purely a fanfiction, and I get nothing from writing this except fun.**

 **English is not my mother tongue and my writing sucks ding dong, so read at your own risk. Enjoy!**

 **Chapter 1**

"Hail Ainz Ooal Gown" – Normal Speech

 _Hail Ainz Ooal Gown **–**_ Thought

 _"Hail Ainz Ooal Gown"_ – Flashback

* * *

"Take this!"

"And this!"

"Bring it on!"

Somewhere on a grassy plain, a man was surrounded by a group of five short green creatures with pointy ears. The man was a human in a yellow jumpsuit, red gloves and red boots, and had a belt on, whereas the creatures were in fur and leather armor and had a variety of weapons. One was unarmed, one had a wooden club, two of them had a spear, and the last one wielded a rusted iron sword.

 _What is this feeling?_

He was frantically punching, kicking, and trading blows with the four creatures who came charging at him.

 _This wild throbbing in my heart?!_

Blood was dripping from his forehead.

 _This rush, this tension!_

A sword strike almost decapitated him, but he crouched and low sweep kicked the attacker, then he punched another goblin who ran toward him.

 _It's been so long that I forgot… the exhilaration of a real fight!_

He was not as strong or fast as how he should be.

 _It's coming back to me_

 _This is it…_

 _This is it!_

But that was okay to him because…

 _This is the very feeling I've been looking for!_

* * *

"Man, I have to thank King-bro for this later."

Saitama was in a good mood. Well, he hasn't been like this for a long long time.

"I need to get me one of these Dive game consoles."

The reason behind that was he got introduced to this new game that was just released called YGGDRASIL after he had told King about his problem from being too strong.

Right now, he was in the game. It had been three hours since he created his character. His character looked the same as his own appearance in real life… well, except the bush of black hair on his head.

He also had the same costume that he would always wear in real life for his hero work because the game gave new players the option to customize their starting equipment anyway they wanted.

"But man… This thing must be expensive. Maybe I could borrow the game set up from King for a day or two?"

King said that the game would cure his boredom away, so he decided to give it a try.

And he wasn't disappointed. Well, at least not at first.

Saitama had had some experience with RPG games during his younger years… before when he had to start looking for jobs as a salaryman. But YGGDRASIL was different.

It was a game that encouraged exploration to the extreme, so there was not a proper tutorial or a starting background lore for the game. He was only taught the basic controls. He did not know what he should do, or where he should go, so he decided to take a quest from a random city guard.

It was a kill quest in which he had to slay a bunch of goblins that were terrorizing merchants on the trade route leading to his starting city, Solitude, which was one of the many starting cities for human and some demi-human players in the game in Midgard.

There was no waypoint marker for him to follow to get to his destination. The game was huge and very detailed with great arts, so it took him sometime to get to his target because of the scale of the game and when he stopped multiple times to admire the beautiful landscape out of fantasy that did not exist back in real life.

At first, he did not expect much when he saw a group of five goblins. They were looting from a wooden caravan that drove off the road onto the grassy plain nearby with the horse dead and the body of the dead driver nearby.

They had some weapons, and he was unarmed like how he fights in the real world. He thought he could just walk over there and punched them into smithereens like he always does back in real life and be done with it.

But after he got batted in the head with a club when he approached one of the goblin and staggered backward from **[Dizzy]** negative status effect as blood was dripping from he got hit, something reignited in him. Something that he had not felt in a long time.

It was not pain. Because of the limited technology and the laws in the real world imposed on the Dive games, these kinds of game were prohibited from being too realistic. Players would only receive some minor irritation after receiving damages in the game, and for Saitama who had gone through worse before he became too strong, it was nothing.

No, it was the thrill of a fight. An actual fight with opponents that could give him a challenge. An actual fight that he would have to struggle to win.

In this game world, it was different from the real world. He did not have the overwhelming strength he had back in the real world. He still maintained his reaction speed and superhuman senses, but his physical abilities were scaled to that of a level 1 player.

It was a challenging fight for him. After, he'd recovered from the **[Dizzy]** negative status, he was already surrounded, and he was attacked from all sides.

His punches could not kill the goblins in one hit, and even if he could see the strikes from light years away like he would in real life, his low stats in agility did not allow him to move quick enough to dodge all of the attacks in time when he got attacked from all side while being surrounded, so some strikes landed on him.

The tension, the rush, and the exhilaration of a real fight. He had to battle madly for his life.

In the end, he managed to kill all of the goblins, and his health bar was dangerously close to zero.

It was a short fight for about 5 minutes, but his being was enjoying every second of it.

Some announcements showed up during and after the fight in his chat logs. He leveled up to level 5. He fulfilled the conditions to unlock the monk class, and he had accumulated 5 skill points. Not really caring, Saitama allocated all the skill points into the monk class. He unlocked some moves, but he decided to pay it no heed as he already have his own moves from the real world. He looted about 267 gold coins from the corpses of the goblins, and some of their weapons and equipment. After that, he decided to walk back to the city.

King left to go somewhere after he got in the game, and he said he would return in three hours with hotpot for dinner.

Saitama wanted to play more of the game, but he was starving, and hotpot was something he didn't want to miss. King advised him to go to the safe zone before logging out, and that was where he was heading after killing the goblins.

Ahead of him was his starting city, Solitude. Before him was one of the gates to the city along the 50 meters tall massive wall complex that surrounded the city. The wall is white, and sturdy looking as it was made from some unknown stone. In fixed intervals there are magic towers and outposts on top of the wall occupied by the NPC city guards. It is a majestic structure.

The city is huge, and there are many buildings in the interior and many NPC population. At the center of the city is a hill where a huge limestone palace rests. It was a massive city for a game about 30 square miles.

When he was about 200 meters from the gate, a notification popped up on his HUD showing that he had entered the safe zone.

 _I guess this is far enough_

The hero touched the menu button in his UI to bring up the log out screen. But when he clicked the log out button with his finger, the HUD and the rest of the UI disappeared.

But it was not the only strange thing happening before his eyes as the entire scenery in front of him also changed.

No longer was he in front of the gate to Solitude. Or the magnificent tall white wall, but instead it was a shabby looking gate and wall with earthen color about 30 meters tall. It looked strong, but it was not as impressive as the one that protected Solitude.

"Huh? what happened? Was that a bug or something?"

Saitama looked around in bewilderment. He was 200 meters from the gate, and 200 meters behind him was a low steep hill, and on top of it he could see a centaur like demi-human with the upper half of a beastman in plate armor and carried a round shield.

He tried to bring up his UI again, but nothing appeared.

 _Without the UI, how am I going to log out now? Or call the GM about this? Maybe I will just wait for King to plug me out of the console. I hope he doesn't have all the hotpot without me._

"Haa… This is such a pain… Wait a minute…"

He just noticed that his mouth actually moved when he was talking to himself. In YGGDRASIL, one could not supposedly do this.

"Weird… Maybe there was a new update, and the game didn't log me out when it was updating. Perhaps that's what explain the bugs." The hero was scratching his head.

"Hey you fool! What are you doing out there?! Get back in here!"

Saitama turned to the voice shouting out to him from the direction of the gate. Because he still had his superhuman perception, he could roughly see that it was someone shouting from on top of the gate. The man had a bow in his right hand. He was not the only one there as there were many other people stationed on the wall looking at him in a weird way.

The city guard NPC he talked to for his quest was not voice acted, so this one was probably a player in Saitama's thought.

"Hey dude! I am having problem logging out from the game! My UI just disappeared, and I was transported to here all of a sudden! Are you getting the same problem?!" The caped hero shouted back trying to explain his situation.

"What are you talking about?! Look behind you! A Zoastia is charging toward you! Run to the gate!"

The Caped Baldy turned back to eye the centaur like beastman who was closing the distance toward him, then he turned back to the gate to respond to the man.

"Don't worry! I am inside the Safe Zone! Monsters can't hurt us players here!"

"What are you talking about?!"

Saitama turned back to eye the beastman who was closing the distance in a mad dash. He was pretty sure that players would not get hurt in the Safe Zone.

"You idiot!"

The hero looked over his shoulder and he could see the man already notched an arrow to his bow string and was aiming his bow toward the charging beastman.

But when he turned back, the demi-human was already a few meters from him.

" **[Thunder Shot]** "

An arrow wheezed past over his head in high speed and struck the beastman through the plate armor like butter into his chest.

The demi-human was already dead, but the built-up momentum propelled the heavy armored beastman body forward and crashed into Saitama sending the bald man flying.

"ARGH!"

The caped hero landed on his back making a thud sound a fair distance from where he was standing. It was like when Crablante had struck him so hard into a kid playground. It would have been fine for him if he had been at full HP, but his character health gauge had only recovered back to half before all this happened.

"Uggh…"

He was coughing blood onto his right-hand glove. Pain shot through his entire body. Every fiber of his beings hurt. He had not felt it in a long time.

The corpse of the demi-human was in front of him, but his vision was going blurry and his head was ringing.

 _This is…_

He had felt this before. It was when he first started out his hero hobby. He originally did it for his dream and self-satisfaction.

 _This is amazing!_

But then he had grown to enjoy the fights he had with the monsters. The adrenaline rush, and the thrill of a challenging fight.

 _This game is amazing!_

"Hehehe… HAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

Everything was finally coming back to him.

His sharp eyes were back.

No… His emotions and feelings were back.

After for a while, Saitama was lying flat on his back staring at the sky, and gradually his mind was becoming hazier by the seconds.

"Hey! Are you okay?!"

He could hear some sound behind him, but he could not make out what they were quite to be.

He was slowly passing his out, but then he could roughly see two shadows looking down to him from his left and right side.

"Orlando! Pass me the healing potion!"

"Why should we waste it on this fool, boss? He has already gone mad."

"Quick! Toss me the potion!"

"Chuh, fine…"

The shadow on his left lowered down, and he felt his back was raised a little bit.

He could feel his mouth was forced to open, and some kind of liquid substance went down his throat.

But then his adrenaline went out, and the hero lost consciousness.

* * *

"Cock-A-Doodle-Doo!"

 _Huh…? Was that a dream?_

"Not again… Damn it!"

Saitama was lying on something soft. He could feel a soft fur blanket on top of him.

 _Wait… A chicken?_

"Ouch! Uggh…"

He tried to get up to look around, but pain shot through his body from his abdomen.

"What is this?"

He looked down at his body. He could see bandages wrapped around his stomach, chest, and arms. He only had his underwear on.

And when he tried to see where he was, it seemed he was in an unfamiliar place. He was in a large tent. There were other medieval looking beds made out of straws in the tent that were slightly above the ground; the same one he was lying on, but he was the only one in here. It was like a barrack or an infirmary of military nature. His jumpsuit, gloves, boots, and belt were at the bottom of his bed.

 _Am I still in the game? And was that not a dream?!_

Saitama was getting excited. He remembered how stimulating the game combat system was before he passed out or whatever. The game would be his salvation, but then he remembered one thing.

"No! the hotpot!"

The caped hero screamed upon his realization.

"Looks like you're awake. You were out for an entire day."

Hearing a voice, Saitama looked toward the source. At the opening of the tent, there was a man. He had a bow strapped to his back.

He could not clearly see the features of the man on top of the gate from 200 meters away, but there was no mistake that he was the same guy. He was a tall slender blonde man of about 180 meters. He was in a suit of leather armor. There was an owl stitched to his right chest, and some kind of an emblem of something adorned his left. He had two daggers strapped to his hips and boots, so it seemed he was primarily an archer. But the most eyes-catching aspect of his appearance were his eyes. They were keen, as though he was about to strike any moment.

"Were you the one who saved me?"

The man nodded and walked toward his bed and sat on a chair nearby.

"Thanks, man. Wow… was there an update or something? This is amazing. I didn't think it was possible for them to make the game this realistic."

"You're spouting weird stuff again. Maybe I should bring you to a priest to have them heal your head. You were laughing like a madman in the face of death."

Saitama scratched his head in confusion.

"Huh? What are you talking about? Do people take their role playing in a game that seriously nowadays?"

"This is not a game. You were almost killed out there. What were you doing outside of the Great Wall?"

The hero studied his savior's face for a moment, but the man's expression remained unchanged. He had always had that serious face of his that never changed.

"Wait… You are serious?"

"I am serious."

"Ehhhhhhh!"

Saitama's brain had been working better lately after his emotions were back. He was already suspecting how the game could be so realistic. How he could feel pain. Everything was just too surreal.

He was clutching and opening his fist to study it. The sense of touch and being were way too realistic.

"So is this not a game? Where am I?" the hero muttered to himself quietly.

"Where am I?" Saitama asked the blonde man.

"You're in one of the fortresses along the Great Wall of the Roble Holy Kingdom. Are you a traveler? You have the body of a fighter. But unless you are super strong which you are not, you should not have come here on your own."

Saitama tried to remember the list of names of the starting countries and cities a human player could choose from.

But if he could not remember people names, he could not remember something like that.

Saitama struggled to remember it as sweat fell down his forehead.

 _Shit! Have I been transported to another world or something like one of those mangas I hate?!_

The hero thought in his mind.

"So where are you from?" The blonde man asked him.

"City Z" Saitama looked up back to the man and answered him.

"Never heard of it. But then again, I have never heard some of the other stuff you have spouted." the man then looked at the bottom of his bed. "And that getup of yours also look weird. It's as if you're from another world."

"Maybe I am." The hero replied while inspecting his hands.

The man stared at Saitama who was checking his own body out for a bit, then he opened his lips.

"Come on… stop joking. Anyway, where are you going from here?"

"I don't know"

Saitama really did not know what to do. The man just looked too serious to be lying to him right now. And by the minutes, the notion of all of this being real was becoming more and more believable as he studied his surroundings.

He was probably in another world. Could this be a good thing or a bad thing to him? Should he try to find his way back home? He did not know. His body felt like when he first started out his hero hobby.

"You don't know where you are going when you are travelling?" the man sighed. Then he continued.

"Well, I'm heading to the fortress city of Kalinsha. A daughter of mine is going to be initiated into the Paladin Order."

"You want to hear about my daughter?" the man suddenly dropped his serious expression.

"No thanks." Saitama replied swiftly as he had sensed the man was going to do something he would not like.

"That said, I honestly have no idea why she wants to become a paladin. She's weak little girl, certainly not the type who thinks of fighting power as everything — honestly, she's even been scared to tears by caterpillars in the past — and while I did say that might was everything just now, that doesn't extend to my wife… although my wife _does_ seem like that in some ways — and she's adorable because she grew up like me, no, I should say that it's a pity she ended up growing up to look like me — but the true shame is that she doesn't have any talent for using swords. However, she's adept with the bow. If only she could hone her skills in that respect, but then here she is wanting to be a paladin and whatnot—"

The hero made various annoyed expressions throughout the speech. He wanted to slam his bed and tell the man to summarize it to 20 words or less, but he did not want to say that to his savior, so he just decided to interrupt him with another topic.

"Anyway, what is your name, mister?"

"Oh! we haven't introduced each other yet. Sorry about that. It's Pavel Baraja" the man held out his right hand for a handshake.

"Saitama."

The hero shook his hand back.

* * *

 **A/N: Thanks for reading. Please review and pm me if you have any criticism or suggestion.**

 **This is my second Overlord + One Punch Man fanfic. I have not fully thought out for how I want this to go yet, but I thought this was a good idea.**

 **Tell me how I did with the part when Saitama was losing consciousness. Was he OOC? If you think so and give me some suggestions, I might have to scrap that part.**

 **The story is set two years before the Roble Kingdom Arc.**


End file.
